Relief decoration was used on Cretan pottery from the earliest Minoan times, four to five thousand years ago, until 1960, the date marking the beginning of the very rapid disappearance of traditional use ware production.
Relief decoration is created by applying a band of clay to the surface of the moist pot. The bands may be thin or wide, horizontal, diagonal or wavy. They are often decorated with incisions or repeated stamped grooves.
Straight, wide horizontal bands are usually applied to large vessels such as pithoi, at the points where a mass of clay has been added to increase the height of the large vessel. The added bands reinforce these weak points and are decorated in various ways through the ages.
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